2023 Advent Offering: A Christmas Carol

Illustrations by Frederick Simpson Coburn

Fr. Ken Wolfe heartily recommends the Seawolf Press hardback edition of the classic - primarily for its lovely illustrations. 

PURCHASE ON AMAZON

Father Ken Wolfe invites you to join him in reading a great literary classic during the upcoming Advent and Christmas seasons, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  All are welcome but he extends a special welcome to parents, grandparents and families.

Charles Dickens is said by many to be the second most important English-speaking author after Shakespeare. His great titles include David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities. But among his most loved is his short novella, A Christmas Carol, originally published in 1843.

A Christmas Carol is a bit of genius that weaves together a tapestry of captivating delight. It is ghost story, an intrigue with guardian angels, a clash of bright-lit room with music and laughter opposed to dark chambers of foreboding. It’s a somber reminder of the Four Last Things – death, judgment, heaven, and hell, while also a celebration of large families, the unique gift and blessedness of disabled and special children, and, of course, a reveling in Christmas.

Dickens’ character Ebenezer Scrooge is a literary masterpiece who forever stands as an icon of mean-spirited self-centeredness. And yet Scrooge now is a symbol of hope through his redemptive encounter with the magnetic and transforming love of the disabled child, Tiny Tim. It is an echo of the return of a prodigal son through the innocent and loving influence of a small boy.

As literary commentator Joseph Pearce says: “The lesson that A Christmas Carol teaches is that our lives are not owned by us but are owed to another to whom the debt must be paid in the currency of self-sacrifice, which is love’s means of exchange.”

This offering is two sessions - the first to help you get started and to evaluate the experience of reading a great work together.

Monday, November 27
6:30 - 8:00 PM
St. Thomas the Apostle Chapel
Fr. Ken will provide background on Charles Dickens, discuss important themes in the work and answer initial questions. Session will conclude with an abbreviated reading from Stave One - Marley's Ghost with the help of Thomas Fleming* as the voice and persona of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Monday, December 18
6:30 - 8:00 PM
St. Thomas the Apostle Chapel
The second and final session will allow those attending to discuss personal experiences in reading this work, share observations/insights gained and ask questions. The program will conclude with an abbreviated reading from Stave Five - The End of It, again with Thomas Fleming's rich baritone voice as Scrooge.

“But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round – apart from
the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from
that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time
I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem
by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below
them as if they were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of
creatures bound on their journeys.”
Nephew Fred to Scrooge, p. 5

*St. Thomas the Apostle Parishioner, Dr. Thomas A. Fleming is Professor of Practice/Astronomer, Dept. of Astronomy/Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona. He has been teaching on the faculty since Fall 1998, though he also taught at UA as a Teaching Assistant when he was a graduate student (1982 – 1986). Tom is a founding member of The Arizona Repertory Singers and has been with them for 39 years.